Water conservation and use is a highly pertinent issue in today’s world as many countries are facing or expected to face high water risks within this decade. Thus understanding and monitoring water usage can prove to be crucial to institute and implement apt policies to combat risk posed by water shortages. This project seeks to extract and map these trends in water use across the globe using AQAUSTAT database maintained by the UN FAO.

The graph below displays the total water withdrawal per capita across countries in 2019.(For the final version I am working on animating the map to display transition over time.)


Turkmenistan has the Highest Water Consumption in 2019

Total Water Withdrwal per Capita in 2019



Over the years, water use per capita has shown significant decreases or plateauing in the 10 largest economies. United States and Canada still remain the highest consumers of water resources over the 20 year period in question.


Total water use can be considered to be broadly composed of three use categories
  • Agricultural
  • Industrial
  • Municipal/Domestic


The graph below displays this breakdwon of water use by sector within th largest economies. It is immediately apparent that countires with higher industrialization have higher water use in the industrial sector. Similarly, countries that are largely dependent on agricultural sector portray high water use in that sector.